Brainstorming isn't as easy as you think

There are very interesting tips on brainstorming in the book The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelly with Jonathan Littman. Mr Kelly is GM of IDEO _ the world's leading design consultancy specialising in product development and innovation.

In Chapter 4, ``The Perfect Brainstorm'', on the subject of ``Seven Secrets for Better Brainstorming'', Mr Kelly shares the best practices on brainstorming that IDEO applies in its design management.

1. Sharpen the focus. A brainstormer without a clear problem statement is like a company without a clear strategy. At IDEO, they find that the best topic statements focus outwards on a specific customer need or service enhancement rather than focusing inwards on some organisation goal.

2. Playful rules. Don't start to criticise or debate ideas. Go for quantity, encourage wild ideas.

3. Number your ideas. Numbering the ideas that bubble up in brainstorming has two benefits. First, it's a tool to motivate participants before and during the session (``Let's try to get a hundred ideas before we leave the room'') or to gauge the fluency of a completed brainstorm. Second, it's a great way to jump back and forth from idea to idea without losing track of where you are.

4. Build and jump. Building on other ideas will be easier if you make the ideas visible on a flip chart or white board. Take a jump, either back to an earlier path you skipped by too quickly or forward to a new approach. Whatever you do, try to motivate participants into the next power curve and keep the energy up.

5. The space remembers. Cover virtually every wall and flat surface with paper before the session starts. Use this wallpaper as a writing space to record as many ideas as possible.

6. Stretch your mental muscles. If the group has not worked together before, most of the group doesn't brainstorm frequently or when the group seems distracted by pressing but related issues, you may want to start with some ice-breaking exercises.

7. Get physical. Good brainstorms are extremely visual. They include sketching, mind mapping, diagrams, and stick figures. And the best brainstormers often get physical. Bring in everything that relates to the topic. That means competitive products, elegant solutions from other fields, and promising technologies that could be applied to the problem. The other way to get physical is to have materials on hand to build crude models of a concept: blocks, foam core, tubing, duct tape, etc.

In the same chapter, Mr Kelly introduces six ways to kill a brainstormer.

1. The boss gets to speak first. If the boss gets first crack, then he's going to set the agenda and the boundaries, and your brainstorm is immediately limited. Mr Kelly refers to a Silicon Valley boss who eagerly launched a brainstorming session saying he was looking for some great new ideas. But unfortunately, he followed that enthusiasm with a room-silencing caveat: ``Oh, and every new idea has to be patentable. And something we can manufacture.'' In that setting, nobody is going to suggest anything even remotely ``wild''.

2. Everybody gets a turn. Mr Kelly once sat in on a meeting a client thought was brainstorming. Sixteen people were packed into the room. They went clockwise around the table, and each person was given two minutes to speak. It was democratic. It was painful. It was pointless. It definitely wasn't a brainstorming session.

3. Experts only, please. Let's see, do I have a materials expert, an engineer, a software guru, and the VP of marketing? In brainstorming, don't be an ``expert'' snob. Bring in someone from manufacturing who knows how to build things. Invite a customer-service rep with lots of field experience. Find someone who reads a lot of science fiction. They may not have the ``right'' degrees, but they just might have the insight you need.

4. Do it off-site. Brainstorming at ski lodges and beach resorts can be counterproductive. Do you want your team members to think that creativity and inspiration only happen at high altitude or within distance of an ocean? You want the buzz of creativity to blow through your offices as regularly as a breeze at the beach.

5. No silly stuff. Sports-utility shopping carts. Velcro diapers. A privacy curtain to hide those embarrassing purchases. These are just a few of the wacky ideas hatched during our Nightline shopping-cart brainstormer. Mr Kelly can't emphasise enough what these flights of fancy do for the team. They remind everybody that this isn't like work, that anything goes, and that we're going to have a lot of fun while we solve our problems.

6. Write down everything.

Kriengsak Niratpattanasai is the founder of TheCoach, specialising in executive coaching in leadership and cross-cultural skills. Copies of previous columns are available at www.thaicoach.com. He can be reached at 02-517-3126 or coachkriengsak@yahoo.com